This is Britain’s route out of financial nightmare, says JULIAN JESSOP

Official figures released on Wednesday confirmed what we already knew: the UK economy began to collapse in March, shrinking as much a single month, nearly 6 percent, as it did throughout the recession of 2008-2009.

The next set of numbers will be even worse. The lockdown probably shuttered at least a quarter of the economy in April. The good news is that this is largely old news. There are growing signs that activity touched rock bottom last month and a slow recovery has already begun.